1. Galadriel says:

    Tell me about it. At best, exploring the villain’s motivations makes them more frightening 50% of the time– but I think the ratio is more like 10% more frightening, 90% lame/too sympathetic.

  2. I dunno about this. In the human world, pretty much everyone views himself as the hero of his own story. People don’t sin because they want to be evil; they sin because they want to achieve some aim they deem to be good or logical, or at least worthwhile. The motive may be difficult to perceive, but it’s usually there. If we’re content to be entertained by two-dimensional, mustache-twirling villains whom we can hate with our whole hearts whilst puffing ourselves up because “we’re not like them,” then we become vulnerable to the complacent self-delusion that we’re incapable of villainy ourselves. An exploration of Maleficent’s descent into evil should (if done well) hold up a mirror whereby we can examine our own motivations and extrapolate out from our own sinful proclivities.

    • Thus my ending disclaimer:

      Such explorations do not always add “realism” or nuance.

      In other words: Sometimes they do. But not always.

    • Kirsty says:

      People don’t sin because they want to be evil; they sin because they want to achieve some aim they deem to be good or logical, or at least worthwhile.

      Not always. The example that springs to mind is St Augustine, who as a teenager stole all his neighbour’s pears – not because he wanted them (he fed them to the pigs!) but for sheer badness.

      If we’re content to be entertained by two-dimensional, mustache-twirling villains whom we can hate with our whole hearts whilst puffing ourselves up because “we’re not like them,” then we become vulnerable to the complacent self-delusion that we’re incapable of villainy ourselves.

      Absolutely! Villains (like Saints) are people ‘just like us’.

  3. I have yet to clearly balance the perspective of this article with what Austin posted above. On one side, evil people are complex, because what else could it be when an eternal soul turns from it’s own purpose? On the other, capital E Evil is, at its center, simple. That’s not a paradox, precisely, but it is a bit confusing.

    • I think as Austin wrote above, both truths apply. People do begin as more complex, and may remain complex, as they begin their slow descent into evil — unless the power of Christ reveals His grace to them that is worth far more than any of sin’s pleasures. And yet as you said, “pure” evil is simple and infantile, the epitome of self-devouring and spite. The difference is not of motive in different people, but time. Surely and sadly, all who end up outside of Christ’s grace will degererate into just this kind of behavior. That’s what makes hints of it now even more frightening.

      • With that nuanced-to-infantile progression of evil in mind, it makes perfect sense for Disney et al. to create complex origin stories for their famously one-note, maniacally-cackling, world-domination-seeking, causing-pain-for-the-evilz villains. Though these tyrants started out by striving for what in their eyes seemed good at the time, they ended up as nothing but black puerilities.

  4. Kirsty says:

    Weston was empty at this point in his life. But he had not started out like this – he become this way. His course of life was not a result of empty pettiness – the empty pettiness was a result of being literally possessed by evil spiritual forces. Which was a result of his grandiose ideas and dabbling in dangerous stuff. He was a normal human who had given himself over to spiritual forces and was now possessed by them. Which is hopefully not the case with the politicians… (I know we all give ourselves over to sin, but that’s different. He wasn’t just a sinner – he was literally possessed)

  5. I’ll add something which may or may not cloud the issue. I think Disney is doing what they realize will sell. I think it was Wicked, the story about the previously designated Wicked Witch of the West, killed by Dorothy, that delved into her backstory and showed how she came to be that evil person. Because of it’s success, I’m guessing a “me too” event began. I could be wrong, but I think corporations tend to be more about dollars and cents than they are morals and sense. 😉

    Becky

    • True. It’s based purely on name recognition and the “trendiness” of the “how the headliner villain Came to Be” storylines. Yet some scriptwriter, even if tasked to do it by the corporate folks, must at least give an effort to developing a story, however shallow, with the themes of good-person-becomes-evil. Here there is a chance of doing something new, or else doing too much on the side of “evil people are more complex and have reasons for what they do,” and not enough of the coequal truth that: “Evil is just plain bad! You don’t cotton to it. You’ve got to smack iot on the nose with the rolled-up newspaper of goodness! Bad dog! Bad dog!”

What do you think?